


Dies Irae

by Anonymous



Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Flash Fiction, M/M, Manipulation, Other Characters Mentioned/Alluded To, Torture, Unhappy Ending, Void!Brutus, honorable man (derogatory)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A brief look into what might have happened if the Liberators' Civil War went differently (and Brutus was about 10 times meaner and more effectual).
Relationships: Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous





	Dies Irae

“The hard part is already done,” Brutus assures him. He has bathed and changed out of his filthy clothes, traded armor for the robes of deception he wears so well. “You know what I want. Give it to me and let us be done with our adversity.”

Antony stares up at him. It is an awkward angle, given how his wrists and neck are tethered to the tent stake. “And where would that leave us? You, winning this war under the banner of republicanism, with no one else to challenge you, returning to a soft and malleable Rome. And I, firmly under your thumb, should you choose to keep me alive.”

Brutus scoffs. “Don’t be hysterical. Think rationally before you hurt yourself.”

“I see you clearly now for the first time. What happened in Salamis, Macedonia… You are a tyrant when you think no one is looking. I am looking now.” It was a gross realization, one that haunted Antony as his forces were picked off and separated, swept up into the constrictor’s coil and squeezed to death. Starving as they negotiated their terms of surrender. Starving still as Antony bides his time in that tent. If he had hated Brutus while they dined together in Pharsalus on either side of Caesar, it is nothing compared to what he feels now. But even then, Antony forces himself to understand, even then there was never a time when Brutus was not wholly capable of ruining them all, himself included. “Perhaps the hard part is yet to come; I’m not telling you anything.”

“Surrender is so easy, and it is your only choice.” Brutus shrugs. “Have it your way.”

By the second day, Antony starts his attempts to negotiate. Two toes are missing, one from each of his feet. Brutus brushes aside the spat teeth and sits on the grass, cleaning the two mangled stubs as Antony speaks. He promises riches and his unwavering support. He promises the obedience of the common people and the soldiery. But he remains obfuscated on the one matter that Brutus truly wants. Maybe, Brutus wonders, he thinks that I might relent if he stalls me enough. It has only been two days. That hardly requires patience, of which Brutus has an abundance. So he allows Antony to continue listing his demands and concessions as he slowly wraps each of Antony’s feet in turn. “I still care very much for you,” he says after Antony finishes his appeal. “I know this is unpleasant business, but once it is done, I’ll give you anything you could ever want.”

The following twilight, he gets word that Antony has conceded. Brutus walks across his camp, wondering if his words had taken and been enough to convince him of a better path. He pushes the flap open, letting himself in. His sight adjusts to the dim candlelight. Antony’s bloodied face turns towards him and Brutus immediately notices the slack eyelid covering the empty void in his skull. Perhaps, then, it was the missing eye that convinced him. 

He kneels in the stained grass, running the backs of his fingers against his bruised cheek. Antony turns to look at him, overcorrecting for his blind side. Brutus leans in close. Cracked lips brush the shell of his ear. “Alexandria,” Antony rasps. “And Gortyn.”

Brutus digests this slowly, considering. With Antony by his side, either in support or incapacitated, it will not be difficult to finish the scattered survivors. He takes the knife from his belt and the glint of the blade reflects in Antony’s remaining eye. 

“Why are you so frightened?” This seems to perplex Brutus genuinely, as if he had not orchestrated his surrogate father’s murder, deceived his co-conspirator to suicide, and mangled his lover all in the name of accruing ultimate power. He is quick about his work, cutting the ropes around Antony’s throat and wrists. “Do you really think that I won’t forgive you after all is said and done? I am nothing if not honorable."

**Author's Note:**

> "Brutus had won the Quaestorship in 54 and served in Cilicia under Appius Claudius. Cicero was astonished to discover that this paragon of integrity, through some front men, had loaned a large sum of money to the town of Salamis in Cyprus at the extortionate interest rate of 4 percent a month (i.e., 60 percent compound interest over a year)...This was all the more shocking given that Senators were, in theory at least, barred from moneylending. When Brutus asked Cicero to help his agents enforce the debts, the governor’s first reaction was to refuse to use his public authority for private ends. He reminded Brutus of his decision to set a 1 percent interest rate for loans in Cilicia. Privately he found the situation very awkward. 'I shall be sorry to have incurred his displeasure,' Cicero told Atticus in February, 'but far sorrier to find that he is not the man I took him for.' Matters were not helped by Brutus’s unwillingness to give any ground. 'He is apt in his letters to me to take a brusque, arrogant, ungracious tone even when asking a favor.' It was indeed a scandalous business: at one point Brutus’s people had used the cavalry to barricade the Senate of Salamis in their Senate House, as a result of which five Senators had starved to death." from Anthony Everitt's bio on Cicero


End file.
